Canonsburg Boy Competes In National Spelling Bee Finals

Pittsburgh is sending a representative to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Seventh grader Atharv Bhave of Canonsburg Middle School is one of 10 competitors from Pennsylvania that have qualified for the nationwide contest.

Bhave, 12, has a biography on the Scripps site which describes an athlete, Pittsburgh sports fan, and a boy dreaming of becoming a doctor.

Though he plays soccer and runs cross country, Atharv is interested in many sports, including football, baseball, cricket and especially ice hockey. His favorite hockey player is Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. He has won his school’s spelling bee three years in a row, and Atharv also qualified for the 2015 Pennsylvania National Geographic Bee. He hopes to study medicine in college and eventually become a doctor. While he’s in Washington, D.C., for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Atharv has plans to visit the United States Mint and learn more about how currency is made.

Here is a full schedule of this week’s events:

Preliminaries: Wednesday, May 27, 8am – 4:45pm EDT. Streaming live on ESPN3.

Semifinals: Thursday, May 28, 10am – 1pm EDT. Live on ESPN2.

Championship Finals: Thursday, May 28, 8pm – 10pm EDT. Live on ESPN.

Photo credit: Mark Bowen/Scripps National Spelling Bee